History of Arctic Airboats

It all started in 2006  from this flat bottom 500 hp airboat, "Florida Style" with an Chevy 502 V8 engine and Century Drive unit.

The incentive to build an airboat came from one of the Company's founder's, Henrik Paersch, need to come out to the summer house all year around. "We first thought of buying a hovercraft together with neighbours on the island. But we found them expensive and unsuitable for the conditions in Finland, with sharp ice rafts at places, ripping the skirts and forming obstacles.

But  the flat bottom did not work well on the hard and uneven ice. It was far too shaky and hard on the equipment.

So we built a second prototype with pontoons that are air suspended from the hull, and the hull height is adjustable from zero to 30 cm ground clearance. That worked well, as you can see from the videos.

Adding a trailer with a turntable, makes operating the airboats possible in most places, as you can always drive off the trailer head on.